Saturday, August 22, 2009

End of the World Party Ends in Disappointment

On the outskirts of Spartanburg county, the area known as Pauline has been the home of a strange and yet small eccentric bunch. Damien Crowley, cult leader and owner of the Morning Star church and crematorium, has been working overtime in anticipation for this past Thursday, when he was certain the end was nigh.

"I've been forsaken, by my overlords and underlings both." A distraught Damien confided this evening, "The only thing I can figure is the real 09/20/09 hasn't come yet. The Gregorian calendar must be flawed."

The once lively underground temple of the group is now a virtual ghost town. As many as 65 people gave away all their material wealth to live in little shacks and tents in the woods, behind the huge storage building that housed Crowley and his crematorium equipment. All his followers had said their goodbyes to one another by Friday morning, and some have already hired lawyers to sue Crowley.

"He was like a father, a mother, a brother, and a dirty minded uncle all in one." said an ex-cult member who wishes to remain anonymous. "We were all certain at the stroke of midnight the aliens would come down and swoop us up in their psychedelic spaceships, and then we'd be planet hopping, traveling from one space party to the next. When nothing happened at midnight we were more then willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and wait, but the hours just kept going by."

Damien convincingly held firm at his podium for hours, but his momentum reportedly slacked up around four that morning.

"We didn't have any beer at that point," explained another ex-cultist, "..hell, we thought we'd be halfway across the galaxy by then, so some of the group went on a beer run but they never came back. Needless to say we were all getting restless, and Crowley was having a breakdown."

The group dispersed little by little, some excusing themselves to the bathroom and never returning, while others stormed out making a scene.

"Man, you should have seen it, I jumped up and said, I'm not gonna do what you think I'm gonna do, and flip out! man," another ex-cult member said, waving his arms wildly in the air, describing his revolt towards the leader after several hours had past and no spaceships had landed. "I then said to the entire group, but all I wanna know is who's coming with me? Everyone was dumbfounded, but my friend Jan finally said she would, after declaring herself a lesbian."

"I just wanted to be clear that I wasn't gonna be his girlfriend, is why I said that." remarked Jan. "Damien was kind of a weird dude anyway, and living in the woods sucked."

The group has disbanded and Crowley is left alone in his storage building, a shell of his former self. "I'll figure out what went wrong, and they'll be sorry for leaving once I'm on Pluto doing keg stands." A distraught Crowley mumbled after I asked him simply, what now?

"I'll probably move away, sell my crematorium equipment, start over, join another emo band I guess. I have some calendars to study, to figure out when the real 09/20/09 is gonna catch up to us. It was a pretty good end of the world party though, just because the world didn't end shouldn't matter really. As long as everyone had a good time, that's what should be important."